Please address the logical point: a non-moral premise can't entail a moral conclusion. Because, in its various forms, your premise - about a creator god with a certain nature and purposes for the universe - is non-moral. So it wouldn't matter even if your invented god actually did exist; there would still be no moral facts, and morality wouldn't be objective. The is/ought barrier is insuperable.Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Apr 24, 2022 1:51 pmWell, sort of: it means that you are "packaging" your conclusion into your premises. You're referring to "circularity" or "redundancy" instead.Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Apr 23, 2022 6:02 amBegging the question means using the conclusion to support a premise.Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 22, 2022 8:08 pm
Ah, but you're begging the question: is this world a teleological entity, designed by God, or is it a place of mere materials? If the world has a moral status pertaining to action X created into it, then the premise ISN'T non-moral.
Here, your conclusion is that there are no objective moral values available from empirical facts, which bundles into your assumption the belief that the world is not a "moral" place. It's merely "factual," so to speak. And if that were true, then your conclusion would follow...
But that premise, that there are no moral facts, stands itself in need of showing. For if God exists, then the facts are themselves morally-laden already.
To simplify: if human beings are the products of time plus chance, then "murder is wrong" is only a contingent judment based on some society's preference; but it's not objectively true. But if human beings are creations of God for His glory, then to "murder" one is to act in rebellion against God, to blaspheme against His intentions, to lay hands on His property, to defy His will, and to seek to destroy His purposes. This cannot be regarded as an act lacking moral freight, then.
No, that's your assumption. Others believe things are quite different than you do. God's moral nature is the frame within which all factual actions take place. This world is His, by right....the claim that a god created the universe with a moral purpose is not a moral assertion - it's a factual claim, with a truth-value: 'the world has a moral status pertaining to action X created into it' makes no moral judgement about that putative fact. And, to repeat, a non-moral premise cannot entail a moral conclusion....moral premises (claims) are our own creations.
No, this won't work. If they are our own creations, then they are totally contingent, optional and non-binding. They have, in fact, no "oughtness" at all, other than the prudential "ought" of us not getting caught. But nothing moral is entailed in prudence, and prudence itself is each man's judgment call.
So wife-beating and pedophelia are not, by way of such a view, actually wrong. They're just temporarily out-of-favour in some societies. But nothing intrinsic to treating wives or children in any way at all makes it "wrong" to abuse them. Morals are mere arbitrary rulings, with no actual force, and can be changed at will. For example, holding little girls down and carving up their genitals is an esteemed tradition in Somalia; and there's nothing you can say against it. Killing Uighurs and starving cities are the new traditions in China...again, you have nothing to say.
So you really have no need of "moral" language at all, in that case. It's not referring to anything real. Better to use sociological-descriptive terms, instead. It's more honest -- though, of course, honesty itself is no longer "moral," then.
Meanwhile, the claim that, if it isn't a fact that X is morally wrong, then X isn't, and can't be said to be morally wrong, is too ridiculous to bother with.